Atomic Robo and the Revenge of the Vampire Dimension
Atomic Robo Volume 4: Atomic Robo and the Revenge of the Vampire Dimension (also known as Atomic Robo and Other Strangeness) is the fourth volume of the Atomic Robo series. The volume documents Robo's wild adventures throughout a week in the year 1999. The collected trade paperback edition was set to be released on August 25, but printing reasons got it pushed back to September 1, 2010. Issues Issue #1: Bernard's First Day :Released on February 17, 2010 The setting is 1999 and Robo is conducting interviews with two potential new members (Bernard Fischer is one of them) for his Action Scientists in Tesladyne when a sudden hole appears in the ground from which vampire-like creatures are trying to claw their way out of. Robo, assessing that these holes must be coming from a leak in one of the Heim-Dröscher experiments downstairs, calls for a building-wide lock-down. Robo proceeds with a hands-on tour of the facilities along with the task of keeping everyone alive. During this time we also see Jenkins from another wing of the office taking similar initiative to discover the source of the problem (in his own trademark fashion). In the end, Robo tries to reverse the experiment and draw all the remaining monsters back to their home dimension, only to find no reverse-feature was engineered. The day is saved when the prospective Action Scientist recognizes that the portal is kept open by a Xenon laser and sticks a diamond (along with his hand) into it. Though successful, Robo reveals that Tesladyne never had any Xenon-lasers and that he must now find the real reason the portal reversed itself. Meanwhile, Robo plans a scheduled trip to Japan. Issue #2: Big in Japan :Released on April 14, 2010 Robo arrives in Japan with a grand welcome. While paying his respects to the war veterans and making an appearance at a local exhibition, he meets up with an old friend, Dr. Yumeno. Much like Robo, the old man runs a Tesladyne affiliate in the country known as Big Science Incorporated, which also specializes in fringe science, albeit with theme inclined with Japanese science-fiction. The robot is introduced to the company's go-to defense force, which is the Science Team Super Five, a squad of five scientists donning color-coded suits to fight an otherworldly enemy, known as the Biomega. Robo tried to ask his friend about a certain laser problem from the last issue, but he was appropriately interrupted by a Biomega alert coming from Tokyo Bay, causing the force to assemble and deploy. It appears that it was the team's first encounter, but they had gained prior knowledge through strict training based on archived footage and simulations. Regardless, Robo felt concerned for the team as the two observed their progress. The team made quick work of the Biomega that appeared from the bay and were ordered to return, but not before encountering the press. Back in the headquarters, Robo noticed that the signal from the suit monitors that each team member carried was not being received, leading him to suspect that they were being intercepted. Suddenly, the team's small victory was interrupted by the appearance of Dr. Shinka, the leader of the Biomega, emerging from the waters and towering over the buildings of Tokyo. He snatches Okita, the Guardian Red, mistaking him for Yumeno. Robo quickly arrives at the scene in a company APC, allowing the team, as well as Okita, to escape. Yumeno devises a plan, in which Robo is to lure the large beast into a specific location. Meanwhile, as the beast continues to look for Yumeno, the doctor himself realized that the Dr. Shinka that he killed in 1984 as the former Guardian Red had survived and merged with Biomega, making him what he is now. After some snappy dialogue and ridiculous language barriers between the robot and the beast, he manages to get him to follow at an intersection in the city. The team deploys once more in a large mobile suit, dubbed "Mecha Robo". After some difficulty, they were able to move out, carrying a large rail gun. With some help from Robo, they were able to fire a shot into the large beast, ending him once and for all. Issue #3: Why Dr. Dinosaur Hates Atomic Robo :Released on May 19, 2010 A scheduled follow-up story to the Free Comic Book Day 2009 issue, Dr. Dinosaur hauls the unconscious Robo away immediately after the cooler filled with grenades exploded on his face. A number of hours later, Robo is imprisoned in an electromagnetic field and gets a view of the crazed dinosaur's hideout, to which he makes snappy remarks about his technology and his embarrassment at being captured by such an insane, idiotic creature such as him. The dinosaur makes absurd claims that he siphons all his electric power from crystals, all while using a TV to explain how he knew of Robo and his reactions to a situation in which he's forced to use brute force. He continues to state his hatred of mammalkind and wishes to give them a message by sawing Robo's head off and mailing it along with a note to the United Nations headquarters in New York. Robo gets a glimpse of the small note and takes pity on the dinosaur, deciding to help him out by saying that the name written onto the note is phonetically questionable and isn't threatening, strongly suggesting a name change. He and the dinosaur brainstorm plausible names, the robot insisting on "Dinoking" and the dinosaur going for "Lord Raptor". Robo expresses contempt at the name, attributing it to a non-existent species from the movie, Jurassic Park. Regardless, the velociraptor insists on being called so. The two suddenly accidentally got off on a tangent by debating about the factual accuracy of the movie. Eventually, Robo gave up trying to help him, stating that dinosaurs wasn't his field of expertise and that all of what he knew actually came from Discovery Channel. This prompted the dinosaur to fly off in a rage. While this is going on, Jenkins and two Action Scientists: Koa and Julie from the first issue, track down Robo's location and try to rescue him. They break through a wall in the compound, which contained the dinosaur and Robo, and opened fire under the robot's orders, destroying the machinery that imprisoned him. Being the crafty little snake that he is, Dr. Dinosaur quickly escape with weapons in hand, covering his tracks by throwing grenades behind him. Robo quickly charges after the dinosaur, but he fired a rocket at him, forcing him into a wall. The two Action Scientists quickly intercept the dinosaur, but failed as well and fell into a trap. Robo ordered an immediate assembly at the chopper to hunt him down, but the dinosaur immediately bounded back in. The robot, now irate, chased after the villain down a ladder into a sub-level, where it just so happens that a large, multi-purpose crystal was situated and housed under a wired mechanism. Having enough of events for one day, Robo shoots the crystal, causing the entire compound to explode, presumably ending the dinosaur, but sending him flying off into the sky and down the shore, where the Action Scientists had to carry him. Contrary to what Robo believes, Dr. Dinosaur mysteriously survived intact, vowing revenge. Issue #4: Incandescent Soul :Released on June 30, 2010 The night before Robo returned to Tesladyne, Bernard had just finished work and was leaving for the day when an unknown green apparition appeared before him, startling the scientist. After being notified of the situation the next morning, tests were being conducted on Bernard, and Robo assured the new employee that nothing was wrong with him. Upon further inspection, the ghostly apparition that is now haunting Tesladyne's hallways switches places around the building every sixteen hours, and drifts aimlessly without mass or indication in any visible spectrum, meaning that it should have been invisible. After some simple, practical experiments with the unknown entity, Robo decides to take the experiments up a notch after some debate, and so he and his team went down to the company's underground storage facility to pick up portable components of the machine he and Carl Sagan used to trap The Shadow From Beyond Time in Vol. 3, Issue 4. With Robo's hyperdimensional mathematics and theory of the fifth cardinal direction, the apparition reacted violently with the field, suddenly turning it into a tangible living form. The living form however, was none other than Thomas Edison. In the most awkward turn of events, the undead inventor and the robot entered into a fiery argument. Edison blamed the robot for his predicament, having tampered with Odic force using a capacitor in pursuit of immortality, which Robo and Tesla had consequently destroyed along with him in October 18, 1931. The robot defended his actions, saying that if he hadn't stopped the experiment, Edison would have wiped out the lives of many people and leveled an entire city. Edison in turn demands to speak to his creator, but after finding out that it had been more than sixty years since the event, the inventor concludes the encounter by returning to the Odic flow, berating the robot for reviving him. In turn, Robo wished to be left alone, having seen too much in one week. He encounters Bernard, and they have a conversation about the weird things they dealt with for most of the seven days. Meanwhile, Edison returned to his Glenmont estate in New Jersey, which was now a national historic park in his honor, lamenting his fateful reincarnation. B-Stories Majestic Twelve The date is September 24, 1947. In the wake of the Cold War, the Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, attempts to convince the current president, Harry Truman, of the potentials on researching Tesla's technologies in terms of national security. The two government officials debate on the matter, discussing about Robo along the way, and how he might get in the way of Forrestal's proposal. In the end, the president accepted, creating the top-secret committee that is Majestic Twelve. Rescue Mission Robo had taken a distress call from a secret sub-level underneath the Majestic 12 Headquarters. The so-called First Earth Battalion Expeditionary Force made an attempt to explore an unknown dimension, but lost contact a minute into deployment. After discovering the coordinates of the dimension, Robo finds out that they have been exploring the Vampire Dimension, and was further disappointed by the fact that they had stolen Tesla's technology in order to access it. He voices strong opinions about his knowledge of Majestic Twelve and its resulting effect over the Cold War, to which the Lieutenant General calls him out for being naive. In the end, Robo reluctantly agrees to rescue any surviving members of the force, but warns them of things to come now that he's known of the committee's motives and actions. The Getaway A follow up story to Vol. 1, Issue 2, Robo disrupts an escape attempt by jumping in front of a car with two covert agents inside. It appears that the agents had used a spatial inversion matrix in order to increase the size of the ants as part of their research for Delphi, an as-of-now unknown agency. The Lizard Man The strip focuses on the three hikers who discovered a mysterious compound inside Taravai Island. Inside the compound, they encounter Dr. Dinosaur, who attempts to kill them unsuccessfully. Cover Art AR4.1.jpg|Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #1 AR4.2.jpg|Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #2 AR4.3.JPG|Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #3 AR4.4.JPG|Revenge of the Vampire Dimension #4 References Category:Atomic Robo Volumes